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When Did You and Your Guy First Talk About Marriage?

If you’re getting married or getting engaged, odds are you had a discussion about the prospect of marriage with your man. But when did that conversation first come up? For me and Paul it was

brought up for us. As eighth-graders with a relationship that had lasted more than a few months, our friends, and even our friends’ parents, would jokingly ask, “So, when’s the wedding?” Eventually, I got sick of awkwardly laughing and decided to start answering them back with a definitive “May 12, 2006.” That usually shut them up!

How did I come up with that date? I had consulted the only calendar I had that went 10 years into the future: My Magic Diary (remember that?). I knew I wanted a May wedding because I love the weather in New York in this month, but I chose a Friday night because I figured my wedding funds would be too limited for a Saturday night wedding (and I was on a budget when it came time to get married, but I still sprung for the Saturday-night wedding). My prediction was a bit off--we were married on May 31, 2008--but we got engaged on May 2, 2006! I think I might’ve been sad if we weren’t even engaged by my predicted wedding date.

Paul never balked when I mentioned our "wedding date" when people asked about it, and we just kind of assumed from then that we’d get married someday. Even when we were 13, we'd say, “When we’re married” and “When we have kids.” Yup, we’re weird.

But I guess our real “this could happen soon” talks about getting married started in college, when we were dating for about eight years.

How about you? Did you talk marriage pretty much from the get-go like we did? Or did it take a year or more before it became a topic of conversation? Or are you still waiting to discuss it?

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